Rove The Source Of The Plame Leak?

Supposedly its been corroborated by another highly “authoritative” source and the whole story will “break wide open” this next week.

Editor and Publisher has also picked up the story:

NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source. Lawrence O’Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, now claims that at least two sources have confirmed that the name is–top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

O’Donnell first offered this report Friday night on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show. . . .

Here is the text of what O’Donnell said on Friday:

“What we’re going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper’s e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury–the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

“I know I’m going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of…for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine’s going to do with the grand jury.”

Other McLaughlin Group panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.Kevin Drum points out that Rove was fingered by Plame’s husband Joseph Wilson two years ago:

At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.

Hold onto your hats folks, this one’s going to be a wild one.

Of course, we should all lend this issue a bit of perspective. Remember that Plame’s identity wasn’t exactly a state secret. Many outside of the government, including many in the press, knew the information about Plame Rove is now being accused of leaking.

Even if Rove did “leak” this information, can we really take it all that seriously when it wasn’t exactly a secret to begin with? And really, what harm has come of the information being made public?

Kevin adds (Remember me? I stopped in to see what was going on and couldn’t help myself…): Rove’s lawyer says he’s not the leak. From The Washington Post:

Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political adviser, spoke with Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper during a critical week in July 2003 when Cooper was reporting on a public critic of the Bush administration who was also the husband of a CIA operative, his lawyer confirmed yesterday.

Rove is identified in Cooper’s notes from that time period, which Time turned over Friday to special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald — under court order. Fitzgerald is investigating whether senior administration officials leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name to reporters in July 2003 as retaliation after her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq.

Rove’s lawyer said Rove never identified Plame to Cooper in those conversations. More significantly, Robert Luskin said, Fitzgerald assured him in October and again last week that Rove is not a target of his investigation.

…Cooper has said that more than one confidential source is identified in his e-mails and the notes of interviews he conducted in July 2003 after Wilson’s opinion piece appeared in the New York Times. Reporters were calling the White House with questions about Wilson’s assertions, which senior government officials tried to discredit.Emphasis mine. Nice scoop Larry, you tool…

Karl Rove is, by all acounts, the political hatchetman mastermind of our generation. Even if he did commit treason, and then perjury, there’s no way he’s dumb enough to actually get caught and go to jail. Besides, I doubt he’d resort to that without a really good reason — you can bet it was worth it if it was what it took to get George W. Bush re-elected.

Besides, now that he is safely in office, the President can always pardon Karl. No way to do that if Rove had played nice, and followed the law, only to barely lose.

Bill KJuly 2, 2005

Yes. If we are taking the leak itself seriously enough to put people in jail and to have a full fleged investigation, it should be serious if it is Rove. The seriousness of the leak has long been estalibshed, it is fun to watch that only now be questioned that Rove might be the traitor.

BRJuly 2, 2005

I’m not familiar with Miller and Cooper’s writing. Are they liberals, like the majority of the MSM? If so, why would liberals protect Rove as a source? Even be willing to go to jail to protect him?

Johnny BJuly 2, 2005

Rove and the Bush political machine have finally been exposed and there is no way they’re getting out of it. You guys are scrambling for cover and I love it.

Bush might leave office as the least popular President of all time. Quite a feat considering he’s been proped up by 9/11.

Worth noting that the articles from TIME et al referenced ‘government sources’ and ‘intelligence officials’.

I wouldn’t have called Karl Rove either of those things.

mbrancaJuly 2, 2005

It is highly unlikely that two liberal reporters
would risk going to jail for Karl Rove.

bullwinkleJuly 2, 2005

I doubt it was Rove because I doubt the story would have been Plame’s job to begin with if it was. The story would have been that Rove had leaked it. But if it was Rove pardoning him would be a lot less of a political sin than Clinton pedalling pardons to people like Marc Rich. I notice the moonbats flapping their little moonbat lips and wings above seem to have forgotten all about that.

mcgJuly 2, 2005

Actually, I think it’s plausible that the Time reporters would conceal their source even if it was Rove. After all, if they gave up their principles for Rove, it would be pretty hard to justify doing so for people they actually liked.

Having said that, I think it’s irrelevant. As the investigation stands now, those reporters risk going to jail even though the prosecutors are concluding that no crime was committed in the first place by the leaker, whoever he/she is.

As for Johnny B, well, I hope he doesn’t go away, he’s a lot of fun to have around.

JoshJuly 2, 2005

It sounds like liberals are willing to declare Rove guilty before presuming him innocent. That’s not very nice.

BRJuly 2, 2005

Since Novak was not facing jail with Miller and Cooper, I deduct Novak has already told what he knew to the Grand Jury. Novak, being conservative, would more likely have protected Rove if Rove were the source. So that tends to negate Rove being the source.

Novak had been exposing the anti-Bush faction in the CIA’s covert attempts to influence the election against Pres. Bush. Novak has promised to tell all publicly once this is over.

If I remember correctly this case is really moot as the elements of the criminal offense do not exist.

This relates to the actual position that Ms. Plume held at the time of disclosure. I think it revolved around her undercover status where she would have actually been placed at risk.

The political consequences of this of course are a horse of a different color.

Also if my memory serves me, her Ambassador husband was going around saying there was no truth to the “yellow cake” story. Actually he was a key piece that gave some credence to this story as it was “Iraqi Bob” who arrange the meeting re the “Yellow cake” which started this whole fuss in the first place.

This is a tempest in a teapot when you get to the bottom of it. The LL and the MSM were trying to show a few words in President Bush’s state of the union address were “lies.” They were using the ambassasor’s account to substantiate their claim.

If the “yellow cake” story/connection is true then this is barking up the wrong tree to prove President Bush deliberately lied to the American people.

Seems to me we have a lot more to worry about other than getting Rove’s head.

How about Senator Kennedy, Durbin, and Feingold recent statements that are empowering/emobldening our enemy in the GWOT to kill more innocents and are brave men and women in uniform who go into Harm’s Way daily to protect our very way of life and culture and the freedoms we cherish that are on the line in the GWOT?

BTW it’s not the Iraqis who are blowing themselves up but a majority are now Saudis on Jihad.

” In response to Robert Novak’s question about the choice of Wilson for this task, Administration officials replied that Wilson had been selected at his wife’s suggestion. Someone, probably at the CIA, told Novak that Plame was an agent. Who revealed this secret information and why is unknown”>http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=1007″>unknown. Incredibly, instead of an internal inquiry into the outing of one of its agents, the CIA director asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether there had been a leak at the White House, an investigation still ongoing, and one which — as Novak’s own article”>http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031001.shtml”>article suggests — will point right back at the very agency which made the request in the first place. In the meantime, Wilson became the Bush critic de jour, at least until the 9/11 Commission discredited him. Welcomed at the height of the flap to the warm bosom of the Kerry camp, he was then scrubbed from its web page and consigned to a well-deserved oblivion, at least among those who saw the few press notices of his disgrace….”

(The link under the word “unknown” goes to an interesting piece by liberal David Korn at The Nation – where he points the finger at a CIA employee at the NSC in the White House.)

“…After I learned from reliable sources the identity of a current National Security Council staffer who once worked with Valerie Wilson at the CIA in weapons counterproliferation, I wondered whether I should make the name of this person public, and I contacted the CIA.

This NSC staffer might–I emphasize, might–play a role in the Wilson leak scandal. I know of no reason to suspect he or she is one of the leakers. (A recent Newsweek story referred to this NSCer, but it did not name the staffer.) But perhaps this individual–whom I was told is a CIA officer assigned to the NSC–mentioned Valerie Wilson’s CIA connection to one or more White House colleagues during the period in which Joseph Wilson was causing the White House discomfort. (Wilson primarily did that by publicly disclosing that the Niger allegation was probably not true and by charging that the White House had reason to be suspicious of the claim.) Consequently, investigators probing the Wilson leak ought to ask this NSC officer–if they have not already done so–whether he or she talked about Valerie Wilson with anyone in the White House? If the Justice Department investigators can figure out how individuals in the White House came to know about Wilson’s wife (if they did), then the gumshoes might be able to find a trail leading to the leakers.”

****

I presume Korn, in the last sentence, means leakers other than the CIA officer. But in my opinion, the primary culprit would be the first one in the chain – that CIA officer whom Korn was itching to name.

Toby928July 2, 2005

Rove? Not Rove? I’ll wait and see what comes out although my natural instinct is to doubt anything that Larry ‘Throbbing Veins’ O’Donnell has to say.

JohnnyB, Bush has a ways to go to be the least popular president. What about James Earl Carter. Weren’t his approval rating in the low 30’s. (googling googling yes) 34% at election time, whoa, Nixon as at 24% when he left office, thats nasty!

Tob

frameoneJuly 2, 2005

It may not be a big deal that Rove leaked Plame’s name but please do remember that Scott McClellan said this in 2003:

“McClellan said that if anyone at the White House leaked Plame’s identity, he should be fired, and pursued to the “fullest extent.”

“No one was authorized to do this. That is simply not the way this White House operates and if someone leaked classified information it is a very serious matter,” he said.”

Rove already admitted in his testimony that he talked about Plame quite a bit—AFTER her identity had already been leaked. That is, he claims to have taken advantage of the prior outing to spread the word further. He called Hardball, for example, and said that Plame was “fair game”. The question is then, who was the first to do so.

BRJuly 2, 2005

Has anyone already Googled or “Jeeved” (now that Google has gone MSM) for a list of NSC staff around July 2003? Perhaps the culprit has already been fired from the NSC, maybe even out of the CIA too.

In the 10/10/03 one, Dean defends Wilson as an ethical person. Argues against Wilson being partisan (proved wrong by Clarice Feldman’s article showing Wilson in the Kerry camp). Then says:

“…A leak gave Novak his answer: Wilson’s wife, a CIA weapons of mass destruction operative, asked for him to be sent there. This answer suggested nepotism; in fact, Wilson was paid only for his travel expenses – undertaking the assignment because he was qualified, and a willing public servant. [BR note: Excuse me while I laugh. Yeah, right – send a known ex-US Ambassador of western country in Africa, Gabon, on a spy mission to northwest African country, Niger.*] It may have even suggested, to some, a sinister plot to make sure the Niger uranium claim was discredited.“

***

Exactly what it was: an attempted setup of Bush from the get go. First with the forged French docs; then the CIA sending Wilson to Niger, unbeknownst to the WH; then Wilson discrediting the Niger/Iraq connection after Pres. Bush’s State of the Union address. But it backfired on those who created the setup (probably anti-Bush faction in CIA with ties to old Europe), because the WH had other sources on the Niger/yellow cake/Iraq matter.

BRJuly 2, 2005

*Also in Dean’s article: He quotes from Time Mag 21 July 03:

“Wilson spent eight days sleuthing in Niger, meeting with current and former government officials and businessmen; he came away convinced that the allegations were untrue.”

Ha ha ha – if that’s how the Plame section of the CIA does its sleuthing, no wonder their weapons counterproliferation is a joke.

I realize that writing anything other than a “frogmarch Rove” rant will be understood by liberals (and worse, by the Huffington nuts), BUT, important things to consider here (while awaiting actual information beyond the speculative), are:

Perhaps the reporter/s from TIME spoke to someone ELSE earlier and then discussed ~with Rove~ (possibly) information on a “confirmation” basis…meaning, they were aware of what they were asking before they got Rove ~on record~ (possibly) as to saying what ~he said~ (possibly) that is now being touted as cause to impune Rove;

Perhaps the reporter/s from TIME commisserated with unknown others (in keeping with preceding possibilities), perhaps they knew the answer to their ~question~ before it was asked; and,

Ted Kennedy murdered a human being, and John Kerry committed treason (as have Ward Churchill, among other dastardly doings by him and the two previous guys who have managed to take up Senate time by way of their dubious characters).

I wanted to include those last two reminders to try to bring some sort of levelling to the awareness by the Huffers.

I’ve only now read the thread comments and what mcg wrote (^^) is about where I am on this issue. A very, very important aspect to the story/this issue that the liberal “media” is completely ignoring, but what else is new.

Should have read: “I realize that writing anything other than a ‘frogmarch Rove’ rant will NOT BE understood by libersals…”

BRJuly 2, 2005

Hi, S – glad to see you here. I’m going for a swim, so defend me if the trolls like framed one, etc. try to besmirch my name, hee hee.

Here’s my question on this thing (in the Conclusion, below):

****

More from Watergate’s John W. Dean on 10/10/03:

“It is entirely possible that no one at the Bush ‘White House’ or on the President’s personal staff, was involved in the initial leak to Novak. It could have been someone at the National Security Council, which is related to the Bush White House but not part of it.”

“In fact, Novak wrote in one of his later columns, that the leak came from a person who was ‘no partisan gunslinger.’ That sounds like an NSC staffer to me. And as Newsweek also reported (you can count on Michael Isikoff to dig this stuff out), Valerie Plame’s CIA identity was likely known to senior intelligence people on the NSC staff, for apparently one of them had worked with Ms. Plame at the CIA.”

*****

BR’s conclusion: Re the “CIA officer/NSC staffer” in the Plame matter – like E. Howard Hunt working for the Mullen Co. (CIA front) and the WH Plumbers in the seventies, who did he actually work for? The anti-Nixon faction in the CIA or the White House?

arbJuly 2, 2005

Remember, as far as the Democratic Party is concerned, you can’t spell OVER without R-O-V-E.

BRJuly 3, 2005

Errata: The Nation’s “David Korn” shd be spelled “David Corn”.

Mark FlacyJuly 3, 2005

What I found amazing was that when the CIA was asked about Plame they didn’t trot out her cover story.

I mean, what the fuck is up with that? That’s *why* you have cover story for your covert operations personnel.

Maria KornalianJuly 3, 2005

Had this been a liberal of equally high-profile status as Karl Rove I suspect I would be hearing a different tune. Why are we so afraid of the truth?

If he leaked the information, it could be equated with treason, and treason ladies and gents is a capital crime.

I want those on the Right here to remember the bar they set when it came to the veracity of the Swift Boat Vets. I want you to remember the credibility given by Bob Novak, and ample airtime on Hannity. I want you to remember the partisan distortions about Terri Schiavo that came back to embarrass Jeb Bush and Bill Frist.

You profited from manipulating such political discourse. Now, you want the American people to pay attention to the details you insist exonerate Rove?

DonaldJuly 3, 2005

I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that a loose lipped snide Joe Wilson will be named the leaker. Carry on.

mcgJuly 3, 2005

thatcoloredfella: first of all, given that Kerry was forced to alter his “story”, including genuine admissions of “misstatement” on more than one aspect of his Vietnam service, I’d say the Swift Boat vets earned their place in the political arena. Whether they were 100% correct or not is less important given that they weren’t running for President themselves.

As for Rove, you believe what you want to believe. Lefties have chosen to believe all sorts of things about Rove that are false, and guess what? Bush is still in office, and Rove is still by his side. But you’d better be careful, because if you spread too many lies, Rove is going to call Halliburton and have them take care of you.

What should be remembered here is that Rove has admitted talking to Cooper, and apparently at least from what I have read Cooper was talking to a ot of people at the White House at that time. It isn’t a crime to talk to a reporter (although maybe it should be). It isn’t even a crime for Rove to have said that the only reason Wilson got the job was his wife worked at the CIA. It would be a crime if Rove had said something like you know Valerie Plame over at the DoE, well she is really a CIA agent and that why Wilson got the job to go to Africa. That isn’t what happened Plame was working in the open ot the CIA, and I doubt that anyone on the political side of the White House had any idea about her previous covert status.

want those on the Right here to remember the bar they set when it came to the veracity of the Swift Boat Vets.

Well, there were 255 Swift Vets, so if 255 people come forward and identify Karl Rove as the leaker, I will cheerfully accept that to be the case.

janieJuly 5, 2005

Well, to all those out there that seem to think this is another Democrat “conspiracy” (as I’ve seen some of you refer to the Downing Street Memo, guess none of you read that one…) why not google Karl Rove, Bob Novak and 1992? Do none of you remember that Rove was fired from George HW Bush’s campaign in 1992 for… hmmm, what was it again? Oh yeah!! LEAKING INFORMATION TO NOVAK! Go ahead and spin that one.

bigalJuly 9, 2005

I love all this nonsense about the so called liberal mainstream media ..the same media that beat the drum for bush’s lie based war without doing any inquisitive journalistics work. the same media that waved flags and played patriotic music, riled up fear to the pleasure of the bushies ..the same media that is owned and controlled by a few giant multi national corporations … the same media that brought down bill clinton for lying about sex (and im no fan of the deregulator clinton), but who wont go after the nuts in the white house for lying about the reasons they went to war, that has led to the killing and maming thousands of US troops and 10s of thousands of innocent civilians in iraq. some liberal media ..

if rove is the leak he purposely outted a federal agent ..thats ok with some of you because youre mad that the agent, wilson, did his job? because he disagrees with your politics? because he was right about the lack of wmd’s? if rove is the leak he is a perjure and a traitor. Dont pass go. Go directly to jail.

MistercReantJuly 12, 2005

You repub faithful are all bluster, desperately trying to put a positive spin on what is indefensible. Rove is up the probverbial creek of shite and you all know it.

he may get pardoned by Bush but this would only serve to make the administration appear that much more craven and pathetic to the American public.
Just watch as his approval ratings sink ever
l
o
w
e
r

Oh and if you haven’t noticed, your boy king’s second term is in full flounder mode. Can’t seem to get anything accomplished, can he?

MistercReantJuly 12, 2005

You repub faithful are all bluster, desperately trying to put a positive spin on what is indefensible. Rove is up the probverbial creek of shite and you all know it.

he may get pardoned by Bush but this would only serve to make the administration appear that much more craven and pathetic to the American public.
Just watch as his approval ratings sink ever
l
o
w
e
r

Oh and if you haven’t noticed, your boy king’s second term is in full flounder mode. Can’t seem to get anything accomplished, can he?